Since Plutarch gives more definite grounds for holding that water is the simple essence of things, we must see whether things, in so far as they are simple essence, are water, (_α_) The germ of the animal, of moist nature, is undoubtedly the animal as the simple actual, or as the essence of its actuality, or undeveloped actuality. (_β_) If, with plants, water may be regarded as for their nourishment, nourishment is still only the being of a thing as formless substance that first becomes individualized by individuality, and thus succeeds in obtaining form. (_γ_) To make sun, moon and the whole world arise through evaporation, like the food of plants, certainly approximates to the idea of the ancients, who did not allow the sun and moon to have obtained independence as we do. “There are also some,” continues Aristotle, “who hold that all the ancients who, at the first and long before the present generation, made theology their study, understood Nature thus. They made Oceanus and Tethys the producers of all origination (_τῆς γενέσεως_), and water, which by the poets is called Styx, the oath of the gods. For what is most ancient is most revered, and the oath is that most held in reverence.” This old tradition has within it speculative significance. If anything cannot be proved or is devoid of objective form, such as we have in respect of payment in a discharge, or in witnesses who have seen the transaction, the oath, the confirmation of myself as object, expresses the fact that my assurance is absolute truth. Now since, by way of confirmation, men swear by what is best, by what is absolutely certain, and the gods swore by the subterranean water, it follows that the essence of pure thought, the inmost being, the reality in which consciousness finds its truth, is water; I, so to speak, express this clear certainty of myself as object, as God.